Kelly Hill Conservation Park

Open dai­ly from 9:00am – 5:00pm. Book­ings are essen­tial and we encour­age you to plan your adven­ture in advance. 

Vis­i­tor infor­ma­tion, book­ings and park management:

Nation­al Parks Wildlife Ser­vice South Aus­tralia Kan­ga­roo Island office (office hours) 

Phone: (+618) 85534444
Email: Kellyhill@​sa.​gov.​au

Emer­gency contacts:

Med­ical, fire (includ­ing bush­fire) and police emer­gency sit­u­a­tions
Phone: Triple Zero — 000

Police Assis­tance
Phone: 131444 for non-urgent police assistance

Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice SA – After-hours duty offi­cer
Phone: 0477334 898

Injured wildlife:

With­in the park
Please con­tact Nation­al Parks Wildlife Ser­vice South Aus­tralia Kan­ga­roo Island office on (08) 85534444 or the after-hours duty offi­cer on 0477334 898.

Out­side of the park
Please con­tact a local wildlife res­cue group.

Marine mam­mals
If you find a sick or strand­ed marine mam­mal (includ­ing whales, seals, sea lions and dol­phins), please con­tact Nation­al Parks Wildlife Ser­vice South Aus­tralia Kan­ga­roo Island office on (08) 85534444 or the after-hours duty offi­cer on 0477334898.

Kel­ly Hill Con­ser­va­tion Park is locat­ed 85 km south-west of Kingscote, on Kan­ga­roo Island. Fol­low South Coast Road. 

You can get to Kan­ga­roo Island from main­land South Aus­tralia on the SeaLink or KI Con­nect fer­ries or by fly­ing Qan­tas.

The trail to the cave entrance has a com­pact­ed sur­face and gen­tle hill sec­tions. Peo­ple with lim­it­ed mobil­i­ty will need assis­tance, and use the trail at their own risk. The steep­est sec­tion is 1:8.

The down­hill sec­tion after the cave entrance has steps and a steep­er gra­di­ent. Peo­ple with mobil­i­ty issues should return the way they came rather than com­plet­ing the loop trail.

There is a short uphill trail to the cave entrance. Access into the caves is via steep stairs (approx­i­mate­ly 40 steps). There is low light­ing with­in the caves. 

The audio-visu­al com­po­nent of the tour may poten­tial­ly trig­ger seizures for peo­ple with pho­to­sen­si­tive epilep­sy and cause sen­so­ry issues for those with sen­so­ry pro­cess­ing dis­or­der and hyper­sen­si­tiv­i­ty to lights. View­er dis­cre­tion is advised.

Pets are not per­mit­ted in this park.

Dis­cov­er which parks you can walk your dog in on our find a park tool or read 17 dog-friend­­ly walks in Ade­laide Parks by Good Liv­ing for inspiration.

Assis­tance dogs are per­mit­ted in most pub­lic places and are there­fore wel­come in South Australia’s parks and reserves. Assis­tance dogs must be appro­pri­ate­ly restrained on a lead and remain under your effec­tive con­trol at all times while in a park or reserve.

As per the dogs in parks and reserves pol­i­cy, if the dog is not an accred­it­ed assis­tance dog, they must be trained to assist a per­son with a dis­abil­i­ty to alle­vi­ate that dis­abil­i­ty and meet stan­dards of hygiene and behav­iour appro­pri­ate for a dog in a pub­lic place. How­ev­er, refusal may be giv­en if the per­son with the dis­abil­i­ty is unable to pro­duce evi­dence the dog is an assis­tance dog with the appro­pri­ate training.

Before tak­ing your assis­tance dog into a park that does not nor­mal­ly allow dogs, it is high­ly rec­om­mend­ed that you con­tact us so we can pro­vide you with the lat­est infor­ma­tion on any poten­tial haz­ards with­in spe­cif­ic parks that may affect your dog. Please con­tact the park via the con­tact details pro­vid­ed under the con­tact tab or con­tact the vis­i­tor ser­vice cen­tre via email or on Face­book.

Recent­ly upgrad­ed facil­i­ties now fea­ture five acces­si­ble uni­sex toi­lets, new pic­nic areas, and expand­ed parking. 

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, there is no food or drinks avail­able for sale at Kel­ly Hill Con­ser­va­tion Park, so please bring any­thing you require (please note food can­not be con­sumed with­in the caves).

Tel­stra is the only phone car­ri­er which pro­vides cov­er­age, how­ev­er it can be patchy and unre­li­able, espe­cial­ly if you are in low-lying areas.

• Explore what oth­er nature and out­door activ­i­ties are avail­able in this area on the South Aus­tralia Tourism website.
• Kan­ga­roo Island Wilder­ness Trail website
• Parks man­age­ment plans
• Trails SA
• SA Marine Parks
• It is an offence to fly drones (remote­ly pilot­ed air­craft) in South Aus­trali­a’s nation­al parks, reserves and marine park restrict­ed access zones with­out a per­mit. Per­mits are con­sid­ered for sci­en­tif­ic research and com­mer­cial filming.

To down­load flo­ra (plants) and fau­na (ani­mals) species lists for this park, use the​‘Cre­ate Sim­ple Species List’ tab under​‘Flo­ra Tools’ or​‘Fau­na Tools’ in NatureMaps.

Find out how wildlife has recov­ered fol­low­ing the 2019/2020 sum­mer bushfires.

Phy­toph­tho­ra (fy-TOFF-tho­ra), oth­er­wise known as root-rot fun­gus, is killing our native plants and threat­ens the sur­vival of ani­mals depend­ing on plants for food and shelter.

This intro­duced fun­gus can be found in plant roots, soil and water. Help stop the spread by using hygiene sta­tions, stay­ing on tracks and trails and by com­ply­ing with all Phy­toph­tho­ra man­age­ment signs.

• Phy­toph­tho­ra brochure

Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ples have occu­pied, enjoyed and man­aged the lands and waters of this State for thou­sands of gen­er­a­tions. For Abo­rig­i­nal first nations, cre­ation ances­tors laid down the laws of the Coun­try and bestowed a range of cus­tom­ary rights and oblig­a­tions to the many Abo­rig­i­nal Nations across our state. 

There are many places across the State that have great spir­i­tu­al sig­nif­i­cance to Abo­rig­i­nal first nations. At some of these places Abo­rig­i­nal cul­tur­al pro­to­cols, such as restrict­ed access, are pro­mot­ed and vis­i­tors are asked to respect the wish­es of Tra­di­tion­al Owners.

In places where pro­to­cols are not pro­mot­ed vis­i­tors are asked to show respect by not touch­ing or remov­ing any­thing, and make sure you take all your rub­bish with you when you leave.

Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ples con­tin­ue to play an active role in car­ing for their Coun­try, includ­ing in parks across South Australia. 

• DEW Park management
• DEW Abo­rig­i­nal partnerships